Our Creepy Little Elf

We have an Elf on the Shelf that visits our house starting the day after Thanksgiving, and leaves for the last time on Christmas Eve.  He is one of Santa's helpers that reports back good behavior (we try to deemphasize the whole "if you're bad you don't get any presents" because that's not how it works here :P).  We talk to the girls about how excited Santa will be to hear about all the nice things they're doing.  Mostly I think they're just excited to figure out where the elf is hiding each day!  The first couple of days Michael and I were kinda slackers in the "hide the elf" department, but we're starting to get a teensy bit creative.  Yesterday he was hanging out by the dry erase board and had drawn a couple of Christmas trees (I didn't get a picture because I was sleeping 97% of the day ;)).  

Gettin his yoga on

That creepy little grin...not sure what to make of it...

Wisdom Teeth

It's probably been 15 years since a dentist first recommended to me that I have my wisdom teeth removed, and yesterday I finally did it. Michael took 2 days off of work and I'm pretty sad he's going back tomorrow as he makes an amazingly fantastic SAHD :) I slept more than I thought possible and have eaten more applesauce in 2 days than in the previous 2 months combined. I'm feeling pretty good now and ignoring the fact that I'll probably feel worse before I feel better :-)

Nutcracker

Sierra and I took the girlies to see "The Nutcracker" this past Sunday at the Akron Civic Theater.  This was the second year we've taken them and it's so fun!  The dancers are extremely talented.  Maya and Isabella have both taken ballet since last year and I'm excited for the day when they can be a part of such an amazing production!

Poor lighting, excuse the picture quality :P

And On His Farm He Had A...

From today's "Christmas Around the World" country, Brazil:

Bounce

A couple of weeks ago the kids and I went to a moms' event at a local gymnastics place.  I was thankful that the building was fairly small because there were a ton of kids and all of mine wanted to run in opposite directions!  We had a blast and I was thankful that the kiddos were extra worn out that day :)  My favorite part was when Milo would get on the trampoline ~ he would watch intently while (im)patiently waiting his turn, then get on the trampoline and squat down.  He couldn't quite figure out how to make it bounce, but boy howdy was he trying!  The other parents stared at me confused while I gave him his full turn and then took him off to wait in line again :)

 

Happy Birthday!

Today is Michael's birthday!  He turned the big 3-0 which Maya happily shared with everyone we saw.  We definitely lived it up today.  Started things off right by not sleeping in, followed by taking the kids to the pediatrician (respiratory virus FTW!), then to Lowe's to pick up some shelving for our basement. I know, you're totally jealous of how wild and crazy we still are ;-)  After Michael assembled and installed the shelves and organized the basement, we ate a yummy homecooked meal of sloppy joe's and cooked cabbage (his favorite, and although most of this post is sarcastic, this one part is not :)).  Then we put up our Christmas tree which we purchased at Lowe's.  Normally I'm a tree snob, and I do still feel a little disappointed in myself for not going to the tree farm and cutting down a tree, but with 2 sick kids I wasn't about to dress em up and trek around in the cold, snowy weather.  The next 2 weeks we're out of town, so Lowe's it was.  Gotta do what ya gotta do, right?

We're working with Milo on "gentle" and "look, don't touch" but I have a feeling we're gonna lose a few ornaments this year.  He was pretty excited to try to "help"!

I'm not sure this is how Michael had envisioned his 30th birthday happening, but I'd like to think he's happy with our normal, boring little life :)

One story ~ Maya pretty much lives and dies for birthdays and special occasions.  She spends days (or weeks, depending on how much notice she has) preparing the perfect gift and talking about the upcoming day, and asking me every hour on the hour whether or not there will be cake.  Last year the girls got Michael decorations from the Dollar Store, but this year she had a secret gift for him.  She decorated the wrapping paper herself and even cut out a heart she'd drawn to add to the top of the package.  Michael opened it to reveal his special gift ~ a seashell and a marker.  He was, as you can imagine, thrilled :)

Later on this evening, Maya asked me for the 400th time when we would get to eat cupcakes.  I said, "I think you're only excited for Daddy's birthday because we get to eat cupcakes" to which she quickly responded, "no!  I'm just excited because he's really, REALLY old."

Happy Birthday, Babe!

What we're contending with.  We did not buy a soft tree.  He does not care.  I said that we'd just have to put the ornaments up high.  Michael said, "when it comes to the tree, Milo is 6 feet tall"

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Play Dough

I'm not a fun mom. I always thought I would be, but really I'm pretty boring, and the busyness of just keeping the house looking halfway decent takes up a lot of my "free" time. I set up crafts for the kids and acknowledge their awesomeness, but rarely get involved in the process.

So, I surprised even myself by doing not one but TWO fun things with the kids this week - making snowflakes from coffee filters (thank you Pinterest) and playing with play dough. The kids were unimpressed with my mad skills, and Maya was definitely confused as to why rapunzel had a purplish brown streak in her hair (because, sweet child, you mixed all the colors together so everything is a varying shade of brown), but I had fun :)

Now the play dough has been put away, the kids fed, bathed, jammied and read to, and it's time to watch a movie that doesn't involve talking backpacks or Lord Melory.

I hope ya'll had a wonderful day-after-Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving

Bread has been broken

 

Thanks has been given

for this one

and this one

and this one

and most of all for this one

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Happy Birthday to my dad!  These are the most recent pics I have, but I'll get some updated ones at Christmas :)

In that second picture I'm pretty sure he just launched Milo across the kitchen floor in the little wagon!

Busy Weekend!

As I said in the last post, this time of year gets a bit busy around these parts!  Having all of our family out of town makes the holidays a little trickier, though I am SO thankful they are mostly in the same area as each other so we don't have to choose between families at Christmastime (just have to have some flexibility in our schedule!).  This weekend began the awesomeness that is Thanksgiving-to-Christmas (and I say that in all seriousness...it's busy but awesome!) when we went to my Father-in-Law's house for Thanksgiving.  He lives a little over 3 hours from here, and I had a previously-scheduled get-together on Saturday night, so we got up bright and early on Sunday morning and made the trek.  The kiddos were pretty awesome in the car, and we made it in one piece!

Side note here ~ we've been traveling frequently, shortish and longish distances, with the kids since they were born.  A "short" trip to visit family is at least 2 hours one-way, average is closer to 2.5 or longer.  I love living where we do in NE Ohio so we can't really do anything about the distance other than get the kids used to it.  The girls color or read a book or play I-Spy or find-the-letter or something, and Milo is entertained by being able to see his sisters.  They are also usually so excited to see Grandma/Grandpa/Aunts/Uncles/Cousins that they don't complain too much :-)

Anyway, so we celebrated Thanksgiving and got to hang out with family a bit.  It was so nice to see everyone and just made me MORE excited for Christmas!  And of course I have pictures :D  At Christmastime I need to be more intentional about getting pictures of grandparents/aunts/uncles.

Hulk Smash!

One of Larry's cats...cat eyes freak me out!  This one was pretty friendly, and Maya loved him.